Come September
by Amandah Leigh
Summary: ADMM, of course. A bit lemony, hence the M rating. Its worth reading just to find out why Minerva has a tail...while in her human form. please review!


Come September  
---  
Rated M for adult … um … stuff. There's a pretty lemony section in this, but I wanted to post it under romance instead. If you are too young to read the lemons (or if you don't like fics in which Minerva is a student and Albus' age has been altered to make him a little bit younger) then this one probably isn't for you.

I don't own these two characters, and there's a good chance I never will.

Please read and leave me a review!  
---

Minerva McGonagall, seventh year student (and Head Girl!) at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry horridly made her way down the corridor on her way to the private office of Deputy Headmaster and Transfiguration Professor Albus Dumbledore. It was past curfew, of this she was well aware, but she had to see him, she just had to.

Clutching her tail she crept quickly and quietly down the stairs, making sure to jump the trick step. She had just reached the landing when she heard voices. Madison Marchbanks and Echo Chan! She was a Gryffindor, like Minerva, and he a Ravenclaw. They were flirting and laughing and…snogging? Minerva's first instinct was to rush back up the stairs, or to hide around the corner and hope not to be discovered…But why? She was, after all, Head Girl! She could be patrolling the halls at night with her head of house's permission! (Actually, she didn't have his permission, but the horny sixth years didn't know that).

Hiding her tail under her robes, she walked over to the pair and cleared her throat, startling them.

"Out of bed, Madison? Five points from Gryffindor. And ten from Ravenclaw, Echo. Weren't you told off just two nights ago for being out past curfew with Antigone Pasiakos?"

Echo flushed bright red (with anger or embarrassment? Minerva was not sure) and Madison's eyes flashed. 

"You were out with her two nights ago, and here you are with me? You, you, you…You're a toad, Echo Chan! An absolute toad!" With that, she turned and stormed up the stairs. After glaring at Minerva for perhaps a second, Echo followed, calling "Wait, Madison, you don't understand!"

Minerva smiled and continued down the hall to Albus' rooms. She knocked three times in quick succession, then paused, and knocked four more times more slowly.

"Minerva?" She heard him call, and she responded, "Yes, it's me!"

He opened the door and smiled. He had begun teaching at the school during her fourth year, and he hand immensely enjoyed watching her grow both as a witch and as a young woman in three years since. She was bright, practical, sarcastic, dedicated, determined, compassionate and always up for a game of chess. He often found himself thinking (usually while she was winning a rather close game of Wizard's Chess) that if only she were older by a decade or two or three, how perfect they could be together…but alas. She was a youthful, vibrant girl of 17 and he a tired old man of 50.

"What brings you here so late in the evening, Minerva?" He asked, his blue eyes twinkling. "I don't suppose your head of house as given you permission to break curfew?"

She grinned back at him, her emerald green eyes sparkling in the dim light of his chambers. "Well, Sir Head-of-House, is it alright if I roam the halls late tonight?"

"Why not?" He chuckled. "So what brings you here, Minerva? You did not answer me before."

"You did not give me the chance, Professor." She sat on the settee against the wall near the door, and motioned for him to join her. He had to hold back a shiver then; he loved the way she said Professor, as if she were purring the word. She did not sound this way in class, only when they were alone, together. 'These thoughts are not proper, Albus,' he reminded himself as he joined her on the divan.

"I came to you tonight because I need to show you something." Lifting her robes to just above the knees (and he was glad to see that she was clothed under those black school issued garments as well) she reached around to pull out…a tail?

"You have a tail?" He said, holding back a laugh.

"I do. I know that you told me to only practice when I'm with you, but I am so eager to become an Animagus, and I do so want to please you, so I'm afraid I was trying it out on my own, and I managed to morph this tail, but now I'm afraid I cannot get it to go away."

Albus ignored the knot that formed in his stomach when she said that she wanted to please him (it wasn't just her words, it was the _way_ she said them). Rather than think about that, he concentrated on her tail, and the earnest expression on her face. The laugh he had been stifling before could be controlled no more. He laughed right out loud, and a second later, her chuckles joined his. "Can you fix me?" She asked, and he nodded.

"Mind if I take a closer look at it, Miss McGonagall?"

"Go right ahead, Professor Dumbledore." She pulled her robe off over her head (he tried not to look) and arranged her skirt tastefully so that only her tail (and nothing improper!) was showing. He took the tail in his hands and studied it a few moments. She tried to control the blush that was trying to take over her cheeks. She would never admit it to anyone, but over the last few years she had grown rather fond of Professor Albus Dumbledore… perhaps more fond of her teacher than any student properly should be.

"Seems to be a perfectly functioning tail. Can you move it?"

She could.

"Well then," said Albus, "I think you should try the complete morph. We've known for some time that you will be a cat, and I think it's time for you to go for it. You shan't be able to hold the morph very long, and I daresay when you change back to yourself, you shall no longer have this tail."

Minerva agreed to try, and to both her surprise and his, she managed it on the first try! She was _all_ cat!

---

With a meow of triumph the little tabby leapt off the settee and landed on the floor. Laughing, Albus sat beside her on the rug, and scratched her ears. Purring, she rubbed against his knee as any cat would and he smiled. "Let's see how long you can last in this form, Minerva. Try not to break it unless it become too uncomfortable to continue or if you start to feel pain."

"Mrroww," was her response, as she brushed against his hand. He stoked her back and chuckled. "Perfect," he said to no one in particular as the 'cat' rolled over onto her back and batted at his hand with her paws. "Nice coloration, good form, interesting markings, natural agility…" 

Minerva could not hold it any longer. She felt the tingling sensation wear off, and a moment later she was human again, sans tail.

"How'd I do?" She asked, grinning. She noticed that his hand, which had been at her side in cat form, remained there. He smiled down at her (she was still lying on her back and was sitting) and assured her that she had done "Absolutely wonderful, especially well for the first try."

"I like to do everything well on the first try," she replied, her voice low. She reached a hand up to stroke lightly over his auburn beard, and he leaned down to her. His head was screaming at him to stop, but his body (and hers) refused to listen to reason.

Her hand made its way to the back of his neck, under his hair, as she pulled him towards her. His lips met hers as both applied just the right amount of pressure. He felt her tongue along his bottom lip and eagerly he accepted it into his mouth. His hand traveled up her side until it rested just below her right breast. He pulled away then.

"Min," he whispered huskily, but she put a finger to his lips. "Please, Albus," she whispered, and for some reason just hearing her use his first name excited him immensely. He wanted her. He wanted her, and she wanted him, so what was there to stop them? His mouth again captured hers in a kiss more passionate than any that Minerva had ever seen onstage in those plays, operas and ballets she had often attended as a child. His tongue explored every bit of her mouth as her hands roamed freely over his back and chest. He repositioned himself so that he was lying over her and his hands began to roam as well. She allowed him to unbutton her blouse as his lips and tongue began to travel from her mouth to her neck and down to her chest. He ran his thumb gently over the most intimate place covered by the thin material of her pale pink bra. He heard her gasp as he moved his mouth to that place as his other hand continued to caress her left breast. Minerva's eyes widened as breathing became increasingly difficult.

"We can't," he murmured into her neck, but she ignored him.

"I'm of age," she reminded him, applying a kiss to his temple. He rested, motionless next to her for a moment, attempting to clear his head. But she refused to let him rest.

She gently pushed against his shoulders until he was lying flat on his back on the carpet.

Albus shook his head, as he mentally tried to curb his growing arousal. "You are a student."

"I am an adult," was her response as she placed a series of tender kisses on his neck. Her hands fumbled with the buttons on his robe and her careful feminine fingers touched bare skin a moment later. She continued until he was no longer wearing his robe at all, just a pair of muggle trousers and no shirt. She placed one searing kiss after another down his chest; she could feel his hand tangled in the long black hair that she usually wore up. She heard him moan, but a moment later he gently took her face in his hands and halted her actions.

"Minerva, stop. This is wrong. We…can't. I am your professor. We just…can't."

Her fingers stilled and she lay down beside him, resting her head on his chest. She could hear his heart beating. Her right hand came to rest on his left shoulder and he wrapped his arms tightly around her. 

"It is now April," she said quietly, pressing ever so softly against him. "It is now April, and in two months, school will be out for the summer. I will no longer be a student here."

"You will go away for the summer, on holiday with your mother, to whatever country she chooses to visit this year, and you will enjoy it, and you will meet many young men who will surely line up outside your door and request permission to court you," he surmised, stroking her hair.

She could feel her eyes filling with tears. "And I shall tell each of them 'no, thank you.' And then they will leave…No man or boy has ever wanted me, Albus Dumbledore, but it never mattered because there has only ever been one person that I've wanted. And I do not think that he is just my professor."

"No man or boy, Minerva" Albus chuckled. "You should see the way that so many of them look at you. In class, in the halls, in the Great Hall… I had to speak to Professor Netburns only last week because I did not like the way he was looking at you."

"Is that why he has finally stopped asking me to help him with various odd projects after class?" Minerva shuddered. Professor Calltious Netburns was only a few years older than his students, perhaps 26 or 27, but there was something decidedly shady about him that Minerva did not like at all.

Albus felt her shudder and pulled her closer to him, as close as she could be without being under or on top of him again. "Some intelligent, kind, good-looking young man will court you, and you will fall in love with him, and forget all about this old transfiguration teacher who taught you how to morph a tail."

"I assure you, sir," she said, lifting herself up so that she could look into his eyes. "That I want no other man but you." She lowered her lips to his and after a moments pause, he kissed her back.

"You should return to your dormitory," he whispered without conviction.

"I would rather not sleep in my bed tonight," she replied, feeling bold.

He smiled in spite of his better judgment. "Well, where would you like to sleep?"

She pressed her lips quickly to his before responding, "In yours."

---

He took his a sharp breath. "Are you sure about this, Minerva?"

Her green eyes were sparkling brighter than ever. "I have never been so sure of anything."

"Nothing can change between us. Until you leave here in June, I am your professor, you are my pupil, our relationship is strictly that. I do not wish to get fired, nor do I wish for you to get a…a reputation."

"Do you want me to leave, Professor? Honestly?" she sincerely inquired.

Albus sighed. "Honestly? No. I honestly want you to stay." He didn't add 'Honestly, I want to take you to my bed and ravage and explore and please you well into the morning,' but he thought it. Yes, he thought it.

Minerva decided to take her questions a bit further, for she felt confident he would answer truthfully. "Do you like it when I kiss you, Albus? Do you like the way…the way I taste."

"Yes," he answered huskily.

"Do you like touching me….here." He brought his hand up to her face and lightly he stroke his forefinger against her cheek.

"Yes."

"Do you like touching me…" she moved her hand to her breast. "Here?"

"Yes."

She moved his hand to her hip. "Here?"

"Yes, Minerva."

"Would you like to tough me here, Albus?" She asked, sliding his hand up her skirt and placing it between her legs, where only her knickers where separating his long, slender fingers and her most private bits.

He responded with a groan that somewhat resembled the word yes. She took her hand away from his, but his fingers did not move.

"What if I were to touch you…here," she asked, running two fingers ever-so-lightly over the bugle in his trousers. Immediately he was awakened again to a state of full desire.

He groaned again and kissed her ear. "I am going to take you to bed, Minerva," he said in a low, almost growling, voice. "If you wish to change your mind, please tell me now."

"I do not wish to change my mind," she assured him. They stood up at the same time and for a moment simply stared at each other.

Then, as if powered by two magnets they pulled together in a blur of kisses and caresses. He led her to the bedroom and opened the door. Once inside he unhooked her bra as she unbuttoned his pants. Seconds later the pair collapsed starkers on the bed. He parted her legs with his gentle hands and without further foreplay he entered her. She cried out when he did so, both from the pleasure and the (slight) pain. The feelings were one and the same. Instinctively she wrapped her legs around him and mentally hoped she was doing everything right, for she had little (okay, no) experience in such matters.

He, on the other hand, was silently hoping that she would not regret this in the morning, because he respected her and liked her and he did not want to hurt her in anyway. He had to be honest with himself. He more than liked her. And he was positive the feeling was mutual.

He could feel that release was near, though he thrust several more times until they had both experienced that rush of pleasure than can only come from a feeling and action of pure physical and emotional happiness. 

When they were through, she again rested her head on his bare chest while he stroked her hair and back. Her small, pale hand rested comfortably on his stomach. It was unseasonably cold in the room, which was not helped by the dying fire, and rather than find his wand and get the flames going he pulled one of the blankets up over them. 

"We could get into serious trouble for this," Minerva whispered suddenly, as his earlier cautions finally penetrated her skull.

"As I said, our relationship cannot change. It must not." He took a deep breath and continued. "I am the professor, and you are my pupil."

"I am your lover."

He kissed her forehead. "Minerva, please. This cannot happen again."

"You enjoyed it! You cannot pretend you did not!" She exclaimed, pushing herself away from him. Gently he pulled into a comfortable embrace and she relaxed again.

"I did. And I do not regret it…Well, that is not 100 true. I regret that this is April and not July, for if it were July things would be different. Things _will_ be different. But we must wait, for if anyone suspects… This summer you will leave school on the Hogwarts train. You will go to whatever country your mother drags you to, and you will enjoy it. And if you decide, after the summer is through, that you wish to return, you will know where to find me, and I will not turn you away."

Again she felt those tears forming in the corners of her eyes, but she tried to blink them away. "Do you promise not to turn me away? I will be here on September first, Albus. Do you promise not to…" she couldn't help it. She was crying.

"I will welcome you with open arms, my Minerva." 

Minerva smiled and wiped the tears from her face. "You promise?"

"I promise."

---

Hours later, while she slept in his arms, he pondered how to explain to the headmaster than the Head Girl had not returned from his rooms last night. He could say nothing, and hope that Armando would never discover…but what if one of her roommates mentioned something? He knew that the other girls in her year did not like her very much. They were jealous of her superior intellect and often teased her because she really would rather study in the library than go to Hogsmeade and have "fun." No, it would be best if he told Armando right away that Minerva had spent the night in his chambers…He could explain that she had accidentally morphed a tail and had come to him rather than the school mediwitch Ana Hayler, because Albus was the one teaching her to transform. He could then say that she had to morph her entire body in order to properly fix the tail problem and then, exhausted, she fell asleep on the divan. He will claim he transfigure it into a small bed because he did not wish to wake her, and that was it. Armando would believe him….He hoped.

Sometime after that thought he drifted off to sleep, content to have her in his arms.

When he awoke again light was streaming in through the window and a light breeze was causing the curtains to flutter. He kissed her forehead and she opened her eyes. She was smiling.

"Good morning, Albus – I mean, Professor Dumbledore."

"Good morning, Minerva. And perhaps you should not call me professor in private. I would hate to blush every time you address me in class."

"You do not blush."

"I do."

They laughed, but he sensed she wanted to say something more. "What is it, Minerva, dear?"

"This is the end, for now? This is where we must forget last night, or at the very least pretend to, for the next four months."

He nodded with a sigh. "When we leave this room, we pretend nothing happened." She mimicked his sigh. "However," he continued, "We have not yet left this room." Grinning his lips captured hers in what quickly turned into a passionate kiss. They made love with finality, for they knew it would be some time before this could happen again. After they were through, he offered her the use of his loo where she showered and dressed in the clothes she had been wearing the night before. She transfigured one of his combs into a brush she could use, then she braided her hair.

He knocked and she granted him entrance as she was tying the end of her plait. She stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her neck. Leaning into him, she smiled.

"Could I ask you a very personal question, Albus?" She asked, and he noticed she was blushing. "You may," he replied and she turned around to face him.

"Was I…any good? You know… I mean, I had the general sense of what there was to do, but I sort of just…I think…How…was I?"

He chuckled and kissed the tip of her nose. "Were you a virgin, Minerva?"

"Albus! That is not something you ask a lady!" She exclaimed, pushing him away playfully.

"You were wonderful, Minerva," said Albus, still smiling. "Though I must say you have a bit more to learn…and I will be more than willing to teach you, come September."

"Teach me what?" Inquired Minerva flirtatiously. But he put a finger to her lips as she had done to him the night before.

"Hush, my dear. You give it a lot of thought over the summer, and when you return…"

"You are simply trying to drive me mad, Albus Dumbledore!" He snogged her tenderly.

"Yes, I am. In all seriousness, though, Minerva. You are a beautiful, engaging, passionate, intelligent and wonderful woman…and an incredible lover too. I think you know that I have felt something more than friendship towards you for some time."

"I used to tell myself, Albus, that I was in love with you, and then I would tell myself to get over it. I would remind myself that I am a silly girl with a silly crush and you could never feel the same way." She could feel those stupid tears forming again, but she refused to cry, even in front of him.

"And now how do you feel, Min?" He asked gently.

"And now… I don't feel so silly, I suppose." A lone tear trickled down her left cheek and he brushed it away with his thumb.

"Are you in love with me?" He asked, and she nodded, finally letting the tears fall freely.

He pulled her to him and hugged her close for a long while.

"I love you, Minerva McGonagall," he whispered in her ear. "And come September, I would like it very much if you would come here to continue your Animagus training…and live with me."

She nodded and pulled a little away from him. "I love you too, Albus Dumbledore," she whispered. "And on September first, I'll be here."

They kissed again.

THE END.


End file.
